Russel Labadie
The long story....
Russel has been performing as a drummer for almost 40 years, he hit the road in 1980 with a cover band named ''Knockout'' and toured the whole province of Quebec with Jeff Johnson and Doug Palmer,, which not long after dissolving Knockout, formed the band ''Presence'' which were known for playing lots of
Max Webster and Pat Travers Band songs.
This led him to be one of the co-founders of Stormbringer with Mic Myette, Yves ''Buzzer'' Roy, Keith Watkins, Frank Robert amd Mike Fitzbach, the band toured the province extensively from the bottom up, from small bars to arenas, and everything in between, such as the Olympic Velodrome of Montreal, the Verdun Auditorium, Montreal's Old Port Festival and the famous ''Mustach' club, across the street of the Montreal Forum...Stormbringer released a 45rpm produced by John McGale of Offenbach with ''The Curse'' and ''Evil Mind'' becoming Montreal's favorite underground hard rock hits......Soon after, the band was invited to record ''Gotta be cruel'' with Pierre Bazinet as producer for the ''Moose Molten Metal'' compilation album....
Later on, still with Mic (who is now playing with Eric Lapointe), Frank Robert and Fitzbach, Russ played with Midnight Sun, the band wrote many songs to follow up on Stormbringer's catalog, but the new songs stayed at recorded demos level. Moving to California was discussed seriously but never came forward to reality. Instead, Mic and Russel formed Flying Circus which included musicians such as Pat Blouin and Eric Boley, Flying Circus was playing steady and became a favorite Montreal hard rock cover band, hitting everything between Whitesnake and Skidrow in their shows...
After a short break from the road,
Russel became part of the televised pop group Delta Zone's entire album endeavor and toured extensively for Star Records, before joining the first californian tribute to Led Zeppelin, Michael White & The White.
He toured throughout Canada, the midwest and east coast of USA with The White for more than 3 years.
with so many shows playing only Led Zeppelin, Russel had performed Moby Dick many more times than its inventor, John Bonham, Russel had shifted his stick twirling & double bass drum drumming style ala Tommy Aldridge to a more precise stick technique & single bass drum playing due to this long Bonzo bootcamp....
From there, Russel teamed up with Scott Leduc and Phil Doucet to write, arrange and record around 60 songs for a very hard & heavy project named,
Skyscraper, later on named ''MadHowse'',
the band played everywhere independent original bands were welcomed to play, the rock music scene was shifting off its tracks in Montreal around the same time, so the project was vaulted and the huge song catalog has been kept secret ever since, but still might be released in the future. The 25 year old project
has been renamed ''Skyscraper Madhowse'' and recently published videos on Youtube which includes some on their ''shelved'' material...
Russel was invited to fully record an english & french rock album for Murphy'Z Law which was also not released, though the band played several dates in Montreal...there is ongoing discussions about releasing the original material...
Recently, Russel has been playing drums
for several cover and tribute bands,
such as Blizzard of a Madman, Holy Sabbath,
Heart's Emotion, Ayoye, Purple Night,
Made in Canada, Rock N Ride, Flashback, Live Animals, Hit n Drum (performed in Cancun, Mexico), Le Staff, Bonham Drum Show, Back Sabbath (performed in Merida, Venezuela),
active in the Montreal & suburbs'
rock scene, as well as many ciites in Quebec. and Ontario...
Keeping busy with songwriting,
Russel wrote the music and performed all instruments, for an experimental studio recording project named ''Blurry'' with vocalist-lyricist Burke Mc Auley,
releasing a 4 song EP on Itunes and Spotify,
right after the worldwide release of
''The Demise of the blind'' with Dreadful Thoughts,
for which Russ was drumming, co-producing and mastering engineer for the entire album...
During the same time, another experimental french rock project named ''Chesteruss'' came to life with Russel as a drummer and released an eponym album on Itunes, Cd Baby, ect.,, this was around the same time that Julien Valiquette from the Jurassic Rock Prog Rock band, invited Russel to record drums on some of his songs, such as ''Healing Journey'' and ''Creating Space'' released on Youtube...
From there,
Russel contacted Mic Myette to start a band,
as a side project since both were very busy with their respective projects and bands, they managed to write and record an album worth of songs with Johnny Huot on bass, Steve Murray on keys and Patrice Blouin as main vocalist as well as Breen Leboeuf of Offenbach, who wrote melodies and lyrics
for half the album, the album ''The Stormbringer'' was released end of 2022...
With Holy Sabbath band mate Burke Mc Auley,
Dragon Nation was formed with Roland Bujold,
and put together a neo-classical metal band, which recorded a full length album, releasing it on Itunes and Spotify to name a few,
Russel was given full responsability for mixing and mastering the eponym album.
This quickly opened doors to a full ''instrumental'' neo-classical album with guitar wiz Roland Bujold,
and master keyboardist Steve Murray,
mixing and mastering duties were again Russel's,
the album was released on Itunes, Amazon and Spotify as...
''Bujold Murray Labadie - Requiem for a wish''...
BML is still active at recording instrumentals as well as having guest singers such as Pat Lalonde, Stephane Desrochers and Steph Moca on many songs,
to complete the follow up album coming soon.
while 2 singles were released worldwide, such as
''The Other Side'' featuring Pat Lalonde and
''Killing The Dragon'' featuring Catalin Moca...
Meanwhile,
Steve Murray was sending original song ideas to Russel, based on his Wurlitzer200 electric piano,
the pair actively started building a vast catalog of
blues rock original songs in studio, which were presented to close friend vocalist lyricist Paul Griffith.
The fusion was instant, bass player Sylvain Grondin and guitarist Chrsitian Labbé completed the
''Sons of Yesterday'' team, for which Russel was hard at work in studio mixing and mastering the full length album, to follow up on Sons of Yesterday's 4 song EP and singles. The complete album is only available for digital download purchase, official branded USB Key,
both available on the band's official Bandcamp page...
Rebels Cross contacted Russel to work on their upcoming album after a 15 year hiatus....the band recorded and released the ''Fortune Teller'' album along newer singles...Russel was a full time member of the band, hardworking at the recent shows, recording sessions and videoshoots....Rebels Cross' frontman Shayman Francois moved on to form a new band named RFAA (Requiem for an Angel), which includes Paul Souza on bass, guest guitar players and Russel behind the drums, RFAA has released 2 singles and now working a 6 song EP due for 2024...
Russel joined the ranks of canadian original rock band FIST-MyoFIST for a series of shows in fall of 2023, with Ron Chenier, Jeff Nystrom, Laurie Curry and Robert Stefan, the newest album ''Alive'' is released worldwide...
Russel is also presently part of a Pink Floyd tribute band, named ''Bring Floyd'' and ''The MoonDogs'' a tribute to the Beatles with a distinctive repertoire.
Russel is also a sought after videographer for local bands' live shows and promotional clips, known as ''Hush Angel Videos''
Russel proudly endorses :
DeVille Custom Front Bass Drumheads
Headhunters Groove Maple Sticks
Aquarian Drumheads